Editing Vladimir Vernadsky (section)

==Political activities==
Vernadsky participated in the First General Congress of the [[zemstvo]]s, held in Petersburg on the eve of the [[1905 Russian Revolution]] to discuss how best to pressure the government to the needs of the Russian society; became a member of the liberal [[Constitutional Democratic Party]] (KD); and served in parliament, resigning to protest the [[Tsar]]'s proroguing of the Duma. He served as professor and later as vice rector of [[Moscow University]], from which he also resigned in 1911 in protest over the government's reactionary policies {{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}.

Following the advent of the [[First World War]], his proposal for the establishment of the [[Commission for the Study of the Natural Productive Forces]] (KEPS) was adopted by the [[Imperial Academy of Sciences]] in February 1915. He published ''War and the Progress of Science'' where he stressed the importance of science as regards to its contribution to the war effort:<ref name="Oldfield">{{Cite web |last=Oldfield |first=jon |title=Russian geography and the Commission for the Study of the Natural Productive Forces of Russia (KEPS), 1915–1930 |url=https://www.york.ac.uk/media/history/russianenvironment/solovki/Papers%20Oldfield%20.pdf |access-date=1 August 2020 |website=www.york.ac.uk |publisher=University of York}}</ref>

:After the war of 1914–1915 we will have to make known and accountable the natural productive forces of our country, i.e. first of all to find means for broad scientific investigations of Russia’s nature and for the establishment of a network of well equipped research laboratories, museums and institutions ... This is no less necessary than the need for an improvement in the conditions of our civil and political life, which is so acutely perceived by the entire country.<ref name="GW,RCW & BS">{{Cite journal |last=Kojevnikov |first=Alexei |date=2002 |title=The Great War, the Russian Civil War, and the Invention of Big Science |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11004684 |journal=Science in Context |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=239–275 |doi=10.1017/S0269889702000443 |pmid=12467271 |s2cid=23740816}}</ref>

After the [[February Revolution]] of 1917, he served on several commissions of agriculture and education of the provisional government, including as assistant minister of education.<ref>Josephson P., Dronin N., Mnatsakanyan R., Cherp A., Efremenko D., Larin A. (2013) ''An Environmental History of Russia''. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 54–57. {{ISBN|9781139021043}}. {{doi|10.1017/CBO9781139021043}}</ref>

Vladimir Vernadsky had dual "Russian–Ukrainian" identity<ref name="University of Pittsburgh Press"/> and considered the Ukrainian culture as part of Russian imperial culture,<ref name="auto1">{{Cite web|url=http://litopys.org.ua/rizne/gyrych.htm|title=Ігор Гирич. Вернадський. Між російським і українським берегами|website=litopys.org.ua}}</ref> and even declined to become a Ukrainian citizen in 1918.<ref name="auto1"/>